Ducan Fanfan loses appeal seeking greater crack sentence reduction

Ducan Fanfan — who, in a future "law nerd" version of Trivial Pursuit, will be the answer to the question "What was the name of the defendant in the companion case to US v. Booker?" —  has made some more appellate law news today as a result of the First Circuit's work in US v. Fanfan, No. 08-2062 (1st Cir. Mar. 4, 2009)(available here).  Here is how Fanfan's latest legal loss begins:

After much litigation, Appellant Ducan Fanfan's sentence for a drug offense involving crack cocaine became final.  United States v. Fanfan, 468 F.3d 7 (1st Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1300 (2007).  On July 9, 2008, Fanfan sought an adjusted sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) in light of a subsequent amendment to the guidelines that effectively reduced the guideline range for certain crack cocaine offenders. U.S.S.G. Amendment 706 (effective Nov. 1, 2007). The district court granted this request and imposed a sentence within the new guideline range.  On the same day that the district court allowed his request, Fanfan filed a motion for reconsideration, asking the court to instead impose a variant sentence below the new guideline range based on the district court's Kimbrough discretion.  The district court refused and, in citing another district court decision, United States v. Julien, 550 F. Supp. 2d 138 (D. Me. 2008), indicated that it did not believe it had the legal authority to impose such a variant sentence in the § 3582(c)(2) context. Fanfan appeals this conclusion.  After careful consideration, we affirm.